Reshma Anand, a qualitative researcher in Bangalore, has posted on a very innovative idea about how to enrich storytelling. She thinks that if we put ourselves in the present tense when we tell a story, we can add to the richness of the detail and enhance our recall.
This makes complete sense to me, although I bet it takes some skill to get people to do this. If you try it, you'll see what I mean.
Instead of saying, "I stood at the reception desk for a while. No one was around, so I went to sit down." you are now saying "I am standing at the reception desk, waiting for someone to notice me. They don't seem to be around. I decide to sit down and wait."
Interesting to remember that Einstein used just such a method to imagine what would happen to his streetcar if it accelerated to the speed of light. He tried to put himself in the moment on the streetcar, and then to put himself in the moment of someone observing the streetcar. [And people think qualitative isn't scientific...d'oh]
The nuances and recall help to enrich what is being said.
Kim Bercovitz told me recently about another innovative approach -- using actors to tell a story as a research method. It sounds a lot like the kind of improv used to entertain conference participants, except applied to get clarity around experience and emotions. The participants keep correcting the actors' performance of the thing until they get it right. And then you know you have all the ingredients, don't you? [I suspect there's a lot more to this method than I'm capturing here, sorry Kim.]
Even objects have stories to tell, as this post from ethnographer Grant McCracken shows. Grant's own stories give us insight into the mind of the researcher, the professional observer, the person who can never stop watching and thinking.
Reshma's post illustrates something else brilliantly: there is no big book out there of the right way to observe. A lot of people seem to think there is. There is trying, and testing and learning and improving. There is no one right way.
The rules are all nonsense, really, because your method is only as good as the insights you get.
You want to break out, you want to be better than everyone else? You do it by ignoring the conventional wisdom, or tweaking it, or trying something different.
Kisses and hugs to all the clients out there who help you make these moments of magic happen -- by leaving enough space to try something a little bit different. They are the ones who win the biggest prizes in insight. We bust our butts for those clients, to try to make the risk pay off.
